


The Birth of Monkshood

by excuseme_howdareyou



Series: Tentatodd Week 2020 [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Jason Todd's Death, Jason-centric, Plants and Vines, Tumblr: Tentatodd Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23623531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excuseme_howdareyou/pseuds/excuseme_howdareyou
Summary: When Jason Todd came back, he didn't come back the same.
Series: Tentatodd Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700494
Comments: 4
Kudos: 92





	The Birth of Monkshood

Jason Todd was eight when his father died in prison and finally - _finally_ \- it was just him and his mom.

Jason Todd was eleven when his mother died and he truly realized what it meant to be a street rat.

Jason Todd was twelve when he boosted the wrong/right car and he learned that Bruce Wayne was the Batman. Just like that he had a home, a good stable one, and a dad and a brother and a grandpa (even if he tried to keep telling Jason that he was just the butler) and Jason couldn't be happier.

Jason Todd was fourteen when he first met the Swamp Thing and he couldn't help but stare in awe as the giant, lumbering green humanoid passed overhead in his pursuit of Nuke Face (How someone with _that_ kind of name and _that_ kind of face got into Gotham in the first place, Jason didn't know. And when Batman told him to not go anywhere near Nuke Face _no matter what_ , well... when even Batman sounded scared, you _listen_.) 

And Swamp Thing... well he's just the kind of guy who could take on Nuke Face and live to tell the tale. And if that meant becoming a hulking, two story high beast of vine and plant, then so be it. It was an awesome sight that Jason never expected to be able to see. Not as awesome as Wonder Woman, of course, but hey... it was pretty cool. 

Jason Todd was fourteen when he asked Alfred how to garden, and he proudly displayed his first potted plant -a beautiful aloe vera- on his windowsill. ( _"The Green is life,"_ he remembered Swamp Thing saying, when asked why bother protecting people instead of just plants, _" And that includes humans and plants alike."_ )

Jason Todd was fifteen when he was killed, died by flame and fire and explosion. Smoke filled his lungs and he burned and then he knew no more. 

Jason Todd was fifteen when he grew underground like the first roots of a bulb. Laying dormant underground, waiting for the time to be right, sleeping until the ground was no longer soft and loose and he could sleep no longer. He woke up in his coffin, his own coffin! and he screamed and screamed and screamed but no answer came. 

Crying and desperate and terrified, he clawed at the lid on top of him, his fingernails snapping away and the tips of his fingers stinging and burning. They may have started bleeding but it was dark and he couldn't see. But he could feel how the wood gave way underneath his hands, he could feel how his fingers grew hard and rigid like the wood it clawed away at, he could feel how his fist punched through and buried itself into dirt. Jason pushed and pushed and felt the dirt give way around him, burrowing his way out and climbing higher.

Jason Todd's grave was six months old when dark green vines burst from the ground below, three vigorous tendrils a hand-width across cracked open the earth and revealed a cavity below. But this cavity was now hollow and those vines clawed the dirt further and further until two hands, fingers tipped in green and brown, burst forth. The vines proved to originated from the wrists just below those hands, and those hands proved to belong the young man who's grave had just been opened up. 

Jason crawled out of his resting place, clutching at the grass surrounding him and feeling it clutch him back and he dragged himself out of dirt and onto sweet sweet grass. He collapsed face first into the green, panting heavily and coughing the dirt out of his mouth. His fingertips _burned_ and the stiff feeling was going away, replaced with pain and stinging. But the grass was soft and cool against his face, and he could've sworn it swayed and stroked against his skin but it could've been the wind. Next to him, something slithered and he rolled over onto his side to see. 

A vine, a wide across as his wrist, moved in the grass like a snake as it retracted back...

... back into his arm?

_'What?'_

He sat up and _ow_ , everything hurt! but he couldn't take his eyes off the last two vines slowly be pulled back into him. It didn't hurt, he realized, staring at it in horror as his skin turned from peachy pale to dark green and extended until it was those vines only now they were shrinking and shrinking and before his very eyes his arm turned back to normal. 

Well, as normal as could be for being covered in scratched and dirt. 

Jason Todd was seven minutes into his second life when he turned around and saw his grave and realized that he'd come back from death itself.

But he didn't come back as human. 


End file.
